Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long said what other people were thinking on Saturday. General manager Brian Cashman would prefer if he hadn’t.
Long said Saturday that he wasn’t sure Mark Teixeira’s wrist “has been right” since the slugger came off the disabled list on May 31. That drew the ire of Cashman, who didn’t like that his hitting coach came out so candidly to a group of reporters.
“It’s alarming in the fact that K-Long would say that to the group of the reporters, but he never said that prior to that,” Cashman told reporters Monday. “This is a lot of times how things work out when things go bad, things get said. If K-Long felt that way he should have been saying that from Day 1, but we never heard that from K-Long.”
Perhaps Long should have remained tight-lipped, as that’s clearly what his boss wanted. Long’s assessment doesn’t sound far-fetched at all, though, as Teixeira is hitting just .151 in 15 games, and there’s a chance that the first baseman could be headed back to the DL.
But whether or not Teixeira’s wrist is OK isn’t the issue. Instead, Cashman sounds disappointed with Long’s handling of the situation, feeling that the whole thing should have been addressed internally.
“Am I mad at Kevin Long because of that? No,” Cashman said. “But do I think that commentary jibes with Kevin Long’s comments internally in that clubhouse regarding this player prior to him going down? Absolutely not. … If K-Long said that, he’s a monk because he kept his mouth shut the whole time.”
“Some people are better with the microphone than others,” Cashman added. “Let’s put it that way.”
Honesty is typically the best policy. But sometimes, silence keeps you out of trouble.
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